Family: Deltona father's shooting Christmas a 'nightmare'

The daughter of a Deltona man slain by a stray bullet said the 69-year-old grandfather was working in his backyard as his family prepared Christmas dinner.

By Patricio G. Balonapatricio.balona@news-jrnl.com

The daughter of a Deltona man slain by a stray bullet said the 69-year-old grandfather was working in his backyard as his family prepared Christmas dinner.“We have not had our Christmas dinner yet,” a tearful Jessica Blackwell said Thursday at the home. “It has been a nightmare since my father was shot.”Instead of a holiday celebration, the family had to tell out-of-state relatives they were planning a funeral for Bruce Fleming.Volusia sheriff's investigators said Fleming was shot in the chest at 10:02 a.m. Wednesday while in his backyard at 3220 Cadehill Drive. Thursday's autopsy confirmed Fleming died from the gunshot wound he suffered.Initial reports to the Sheriff's Office said the gunshot had come from a shooting range behind the Flemings' home, but investigators have determined that's not the case, sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson said. The person identified by deputies as the shooter, whose name has not been released, admitted to firing a shotgun but said he didn't realize a person had been hit, officials said. Davidson said the shot was fired from a northeast direction behind the home.“Based on what we know thus far, it appears the shooting was accidental,” Davidson said Thursday afternoon.No charging decision has been made yet by the Sheriff's Office and the investigation continued, Davidson said.An incident report shows that four men were found at the scene of the shooting where Joshua Fleming, the victim's son, had blocked a road with his truck to stop the men's vehicle from leaving.According to a 9-1-1 recording, the family said that their Hispanic neighbors were firing guns on their land, a 10-acre plot, and that one of the bullets struck Fleming in the chest.“I don't know if it is on purpose or not,” Fleming's wife, Doreen, told a dispatcher in the emergency call.Blackwell said the family was preparing Christmas dinner and her father was in the backyard doing some work. Fleming's wife said on the 9-1-1 recording that her husband was outside digging in dirt.Blackwell said her mother was just about to take her father some iced tea, which he loved. Her brother, Joshua Fleming, found their father and brought him to the driveway.The daughter then ran outside.“I ran to my father and held his hand,” Blackwell said, racked by tears. “The last thing he said was, 'I have been shot.' ” Her father, shot on the left side of his chest, started losing consciousness, Blackwell said. Sheriff's investigators said Fleming was rushed to Florida Hospital Fish Memorial in Orange City where he was pronounced dead at 10:58 a.m.A sheriff's incident report states that a neighbor, Jeffery Stuck, who lives across the street from Bruce Fleming's home, said he heard two to four shots and then heard yelling next door and went to investigate. Stuck found Bruce Fleming in the driveway and he helped control the bleeding until paramedics could get to the scene, investigators said.Joshua Fleming told investigators that he was walking from the main house to a barn in the rear of the property where his father was working and saw him lying in the dirt, bleeding. The son said he ran back to the home to tell his mother that his father had been shot and to call 9-1-1, the report states.Joshua Fleming ran back to the barn, held his father and helped him to the driveway of the home, investigators said.“I can't put into words,” Joshua Fleming said, hardly able to speak, when asked to describe what it was like seeing his father had been shot. “He was trying to walk and I was carrying him to the house.”“He just kept saying that he had been shot,” Joshua Fleming said. “I am still in shock.”The son then drove a truck to the neighbor's house, where he thought the gunshots originated, and blocked the road, the report shows.Blackwell and Joshua Fleming said their father was a soybean and wheat farmer in Indiana, and also had a dairy farm. He married his high school sweetheart, Doreen, and both were from Hagerstown.With a degree in agronomy from Purdue University, Bruce Fleming moved to Florida 31 years ago when grain prices fell, affecting his farm. He ran Fleming's Lawn Services, in Deltona.“We lived near Saxon and I-4 and we had just moved to the Cadehill address two years ago,” Joshua Fleming said.The family feels lost without their father, Blackwell said. “He was a serious man but he was always kind to everyone,” Blackwell said. “I don't know what we are going to do without him. My mother's world revolved around him.”